Where The Heart Is: Issue I (Patreon)

Where The Heart Is: Issue I

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

Grace Veder

Morning breakfast in the Veder household was something of a longstanding tradition, one that the matriarch of the small family took a great deal of pride in and nearly as much effort into. At one point, it had been a warm affair for the entire family, a time to decompress, talk and simply enjoy each other’s company before heading out to face the rigors of the day.

Over the last three years, though, that same affair had grown somewhat colder as one important member of the family was repeatedly absent from it. found himself dealing with a much busier schedule, the duties of his career pulling him away for longer and longer hours. Those hours soon stretched into entire nights and before long, those absent nights without fail began to stretch into entire days. If that wasn’t bad enough, it didn’t make it easier that during some especially bad periods, those days could even become lengthy weeks at a time.

After several years of continually heading down this predictable path, it had eventually reached the point that the Veder household considered it a matter of celebration whenever every member of the family was together at the same time. It’s just not the same anymore. Not without him. Grace Veder held back the urge to let out a breath at the familiar but unwanted thoughts running through her head as her blue eyes shifted to the empty seat next to her. Johnny…

“Mmppf?”

Without shifting her neutral expression in the slightest, Grace tilted her gaze slightly to stare at her son sitting across from her at the breakfast table.

Many things had changed over the last few years in her home. Her son was especially high on that list, for several reasons.One of the few things that hadn’t changed, Grace was proud to say, was her cooking.

As always, breakfast in the Veder house was a hearty spread.

Eggs, sausage, waffles…

Really, almost anything you could find on the table of any breakfast cereal commercial — minus the actual cereal, of course — was right in front of him. It was enough to feed at least three people but to Greg, it was just the same normal breakfast he had always known, albeit with a slight increase in available portions for him.

And as usual, it all tasted great.

Not that her son noticed, really.

He would have had to slow down somewhat to actually properly notice what he was currently chewing on, the act of savoring one he didn’t seem to understand. Truthfully, everything he could reach was being shoveled down the teenage boy’s mouth, the possibility of choking minimized by his very motivated chewing along with his throat being lubricated by liberal helpings of maple syrup and healthy swallows of an entire pitcher of orange juice.

“I just don’t know where you put it all,” she finally spoke up after several minutes of long silence, the only real noise in the room coming from the utter lack of manners that was her baby boy.

Greg paused, the bottom half of a syrup-heavy Belgian waffle sticking out of his mouth as he glanced up to look at his mother. “Mpfff?”

“Darling, I know you’re late for school but please do mother a favor and slow down just a bit, would you? I do love you very much, pumpkin, but you’re upsetting my poor stomach eating like that.” Grace Veder lowered her gaze as she spoke, a single hand hiding her eyes as she leaned forward dramatically.

“Mpffff.” Grace didn’t need to raise her head or lift her hand to know that the uncouth boy was rolling his beautiful blue eyes at her, the teenager having developed the habit of doing so every time his mother’s posh Mid-Atlantic accent chose to poke its way past through years of Brockton Bay living.

“‘Mmmpf’, says the barbarian to his poor suffering mother who slaved over a hot stove early in the morning just for him,” Grace remarked in a tone that was somehow loving and mocking at the same time. She sat up straight once again, hands clasped over each other as she placed them on the table. “No love for your suffering mother, I see.”

Greg didn’t even bother looking at her this time, face down in a pile of eggs as she continued speaking. “I don’t even know where you get it from, honestly. You eat like a caveman and somehow, you manage to remain as skinny as a rake. The blessings of the body are unappreciated by the teenage boy, I swear.”

“Mpfff mff?”

Grace raised an eyebrow at her son as he continued to pull off his daily interpretation of a starving man at her breakfast table. Both hands clutched a knife and fork tightly as he held on to them like tiny weapons, the two utensils going entirely unused as he worked at a syrup-drenched waffle again with just his teeth. “Young man, be warned that if I find so much as a drop of syrup on your clothes, there will be no video games in the house for a week.”

“Mpf!”

Grace barely held herself back from rolling her eyes at her son’s indignant response, not even going so far as to remove the food from his mouth before speaking. Being a mother is thankless, but oh so rewarding, isn’t it?

Thankfully, the rabid animal behavior seemed to isolate itself to breakfast and breakfast alone, something his mother considered a blessing.

It was usually by dinner time that her precious little barbarian boy usually calmed down to something approaching normal human diet habits. Oddly enough, though, a good night’s sleep always seemed to reset him right back to something of a caveman, the boy always completely ravenous by the time he rushed the breakfast table every morning.

Not unusual for her son, appetite and eating habits both. Both had cropped up over the past year or so and considering her boy had gained at least an inch of height in that time, Grace didn’t consider either of those new developments much of anything to worry about.

Truthfully, neither did his father.

Then again, when does he ever really worry about Greg? It’s always smiles and playtime with that one. I’m the one stuck being the party pooper. The thirty-one year old mother simply smiled and rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she silently lamented over the pointless years she had wasted on teaching her bottomless pit of a son table manners. “No, I don’t want one,” she waved off her son’s question, somehow able to understand his words. “Now eat up. I still have to get your little behind to school before the first bell.”

“Mmff-mpff.”

With a slight quirk of her lips, Grace turned around in her seat, her head moving more than the rest of her body. Her piercing gaze came to a stop on their living room TV perched on the wall, the thing itself an oversized beast of a flatscreen that Johnny had gifted to her three years back for their anniversary. At least a decade out from being released to the public, the thing had a whole mess of experimental options and features that there was little, if any, infrastructure for. Grace didn’t really care about any of that, though, as she barely watched television in the first place.

No, she much rather enjoyed the way that the monster of a device never failed to elicit shocked expressions from guests whenever they caught sight of the thing. It was petty, of course, but wasn’t that part of the fun, really?

The only little snag was that she couldn’t exactly be honest about how her husband had gotten it for her, but that was only the slightest inconvenience and not even much of one at all. Really, it had only been just a few months after receiving the gift that Grace managed to nip that problem in the bud rather easily.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

“It’s all very hush-hush, if you must know,” Grace lowered her voice to a whisper, her refined accent deepening in the quiet conversation. She gently placed her delicately cut finger sandwich back onto her plate, the elegant china clinking softly against the fine silverware. “One of those private company in-house secrets.”

“Really?” Zoe, her auburn-haired neighbor sitting across from her at the ornately set tea table, leaned in, curiosity wide in her hazel eyes. "I hadn’t considered— I mean, I didn't realize it was that serious."

“Now, would I ever lie to you, Zoe?” Grace continued on with a demure smile, nothing but pure falsehoods leaving her lips. She held back the urge to laugh in the other woman’s face, face a mask of perfect sincerity as she raised her teacup up to her lips. She maintained a mask of perfect sincerity, lifting her teacup in a fluid motion to her lips. "Just a little sugar, no milk," she'd instructed Zoe when she offered the beverage. Every detail meticulously arranged, a stage set for her play. Zoe was eagerly leaning into her performance, her naivety like a stench that pervaded the immaculate dining room.

Even dead asleep, Grace would have caught the scent of it like blood in the water. Her position in the neighborhood was already something to talk about; the youngest, prettiest wife, with the largest, most expensive house, and a front garden that could have been lifted from the pages of a high-end gardening magazine. And to top it all off, her husband made all of theirs look like trolls in comparison.

Everything about her was enviable and Grace loved it.

And she also abused the hell out of it.

Playing the women of the neighborhood against each other, abusing her connections to get into restaurants and stores they could never reasonably hope to access, inviting one of the housewives at random to some private event to play up whatever non-existent friendship they thought existed. In no time at all, a word from her basically decided the routine of her neighborhood, making her the de facto queen of Amberbrook.

Really, it was too easy.

They dance to my tune, she thought, her eyes twinkling with a secret joy. So simple, so deliciously simple.

Zoe had already been on the verge of exploding with excitement at receiving her first invitation to one of Grace’s private teas. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that Grace could feel her anticipation from across the street over the past week, the woman’s thoughts shuddering like a chihuahua as she bragged to the other women of the neighborhood who had yet to receive one. Truly, Zoe’s excitement was a live wire, arcing across the manicured lawns of Amberbrook.With the proverbial powder keg on the verge of lighting, the young Mrs. Veder couldn’t find it in her to be surprised that the prospect of added juicy gossip on top of that was enough to almost make the woman jump

"To be perfectly honest," Grace began, letting out a sigh that sounded like the last whisper of autumn wind, a hint of worry seeping into her previously immaculate smile. “I doubt I should even be talking about this, you know. Johnny said he had to sign so many of those secrecy forms of his and I know you’ve heard of how Vought is with their secrets. I couldn’t bear to see him get in trouble because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

Admittedly, the little wobble of her bottom lip was overkill, she knew that.

Still, Grace also knew she had a story to sell and it needed to be interesting enough to spread through the neighborhood like a virus. It might have been simpler — so much simpler — to switch a few neurons one way, twist the woman’s thought patterns just right with the slightest mental nudge… nothing past making the housewife across from her accept whatever she said with a moment’s work.

But that was nowhere as fun.

Zoe’s reaction was almost comically predictable. “Gracie, oh my… I…” tShe stammered, fumbling for words. She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling beneath her floral blouse. “I… I know we don’t really talk much but I like to think of us as friends. I’d never tell a soul anything you told me here, I promise.”

Grace nodded calmly, eyes twinkling as her tea guest lied even more blatantly than she had to her. "You truly are a gem, Zoe. We really should spend more time together."

"I’d love that," Zoe replied earnestly.

With a twinkle in her eye, Grace returned to her picture-perfect smile. "So would I."

Too easy.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

Grace’s mind started to wander, tracing back to the origins of this peculiar tale. The words that escaped her lips were not as much a result of some clandestine beta-testing project, as she suggested, but more of a personal favor, a sweetly spun narrative veiled as a shared secret. The truth was often cloaked in artful deceptions, the best lies always were. Isn't it just like a delicate dance? Each step, each word, a calculated move.

She allowed herself a faint, playful smirk, her memories reflecting in the subtle twinkle of her blue eyes. Her manicured fingers fluttered in the air, a practiced, elegant movement, a ballet of the fingers. She cast her gaze towards the distant living room. There, amidst the tastefully chosen decor, sat the television, a black, silent monolith. With a flicker of white in her eyes, she sent out an invisible command, and the television hummed to life.

“...crime is on the loose, the Seven assemble. Collect all Seven action figur-”

The vibrant images on the screen were bathed in the garish colors of a commercial. An overenthusiastic voice-over extolled the virtues of some action figures, their plastic faces set in permanent, unblinking smiles. "The Seven," of course, superheroes immortalized in plastic.

"Oh, how they all do love their heroes," Grace thought with an amused roll of her eyes. “No, thank you.” She raised her hand, another mental nudge, blue flashed to white again and the television responded.

“-love games? Love pizza? Love winning super prizes? Then paddle on down to Buster Beaver’s Pizza for all that and m-!’

"Now it's a pizza parlor," she mused, a slight crease forming on her forehead. It was all commercials, one after the other, trying to sell something to someone. Aren't we all just looking for a buyer? The thought sent a ripple of laughter through her, a quiet echo of her younger, more naive self.

Another mental flex and the channel changed, Grace frowning slightly as she kept on having to flick her way through commercial after commercial, until finally…

“I first saw you in my study hall, that’s right!”

Five young boys wearing colorful jumpsuits stood out on the big screen, each one of them trapped in a glass box just large enough for them to perform their somewhat-limited dance moves in.

“Now, you’re at Abercrombie in the mall tonight!”

The camera shifted and zoomed in to focus on the boy at the very center, the only one singing as the others simply grooved along to the techno-pop beat like backup dancers. Clad in the most colorful and overly-designed outfit of them all — a rather patriotic red, white and blue — the tan-skinned pretty boy continued to sing as he smiled brightly and clapped his hands.

The second his palms met each other, white light rippled outwards from the point of contact and cracks formed on every piece of glass in the room, the boxes that entrapped them included.

“I wanna love you just like Brad loves Jen,

Like Megan Fox, you’re my per-fect te~eeeeeen!

“You can be my favorite girl and you can rock my world,

I never felt like this,

Baby, Rock My Kiss!”

“Oh…” Grace Veder lowered her hand as a familiar face continued his song, crooning and dancing as he displayed his superpowers in tune to the beat.

“Mom…”

The word drew Grace from her reverie.

Grace turned around to face her son, the waves of melancholy rolling off him more noticeable than usual. Her gaze flicked back towards the television, the reason clear to her as she focused on the boy on screen receiving the primary focus from the camera as he continued to show off his superhuman abilities in tune with the music.

“Mom…” Greg let out a sigh with the word, pushing the remainder of his plate away from him as he did so. “Could you drop me off at school? I think I’m feeling kinda full.”

Grace stared at the screen for a moment longer, on the singer the camera seemed to focus on in particular. After a moment, she turned back to smile at her little boy. “No problem, sweetheart.”